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Sergey Prokofiev: Diaries 1915-1922, Volume II: Behind the Mask

A career in the West

Anthony Phillips (translator)
Faber, 775pp, £30,

Oliver Gilmour

Wednesday, 30th April 2008

Oliver Gilmour looks at a second volume of Sergei Prokofiev's diaries

The full flavour of his fluent finesse is perhaps best conveyed by the following letter, written on 15 July 1921 to the harpist Eleanora Damskaya:

Diaghilev presented it [the early ballet Chout] with extreme pomp in Paris and London, with me conducting it. It had an extraordinary success; the French modernists went especially crazy over it. In London 114 reviews appeared, but 113 of them are abusive.

These diaries are terrific. ‘My portrait appeared in the Daily News with the caption “the best-dressed man in Chicago”. On the strength of it I went about with a real swagger.’ Or, ‘Bored out of my life by Mahler’s 7th Symphony. Who needs this music?’

Did Prokofiev sell his soul by returning to Russia in 1936? Probably not; but it was a catastrophe in terms of public awareness that he should have died on 15 March, 1953, the same day as Stalin. I eagerly await Volume III.

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